| Popis: |
Drunk driving is a public health threat, endangering the lives of all road users. Younger drivers are inclined to engage in risk-taking behaviour, such as drunk driving with BAC levels exceeding the legal limit. The prevalence of drunk driving in the country has increased among the youth, with children starting to drink alcohol under the age of 13 year in the country. In the Western Cape province, alcohol consumption and risk-taking behaviour were prevalent among school-going children. Younger drivers (15 to 19 years) had the highest driver mortality rates per registered driver, compared to older drivers in the province. Graduated driver license (GDL) programmes provide a supervised learning opportunity for younger drivers to gain driving skills and include a zero-alcohol tolerance restriction. The usefulness of implementing a GDL programme in the country needs to be explored. It is therefore important to understand the impact of alcohol-related risk-taking behaviour among younger drivers. This retrospective cross-sectional study measured alcohol-attributable crash risk by age and sex, from a sample of 921 driver fatalities from Western Cape mortuary records (2009 to 2011). Poisson regression was used to ascertain whether the mortality risk profile for young drivers was differentially affected by alcohol. Female drivers aged 15 to 24 years with zero or low BAC levels |
